Rectors attack plan to alter job terms of contract staff

Rectors of Brazil's federal universities say that a government plan to reform the pay conditions and recruitment of contract professors would violate the principle of university autonomy, complicate administration and create instability for staff and students.

A bill embodying the plan is to be presented in parliament within weeks.

Contract professors at federal universities enjoy job stability, salaries and pension rights similar to those of tenured staff. But the education ministry is insisting on a new contract that would reduce job stability and salaries and eliminate pension rights.

It also wants a compulsory system of recruitment by open competitive examination.

The ministry has suspended the contracting of all teaching staff at the country's federal universities pending a solution.

Carlos Roberto Antunes dos Santos, rector of the Universidade Federal do Paran and president of the national association of higher education directors' commission for human resources policy, warned that the creation and administration of two forms of contract would place a heavy burden on universities. In the end, the students would suffer most, he said.

Ageu Almintas, pro rector for human resources at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, described the two forms of contract as incompatible and a threat to university autonomy.

"The imposition of two forms of contract will mean different salary scales and systems of promotion. It will also create great instability," he said.

Professors on new contracts would be more vulnerable to sacking for holding views that were different from those of their superiors, he said. With the loss of stability and democracy, professors would feel impeded in expressing their ideas.

The UFRN rector, Técia Maria de Oliveira Maranhão, stressed that universities required a stable and permanent staff to be able to carry out their activities of teaching and research efficiently.

Walmir de Albuquerque Barbosa, rector of the Fundãçio Universidade Federal do Amazonas, described the reform as a step back in time.

"The current regime gives contract professors more guarantees in that it offers stability and security," he said.

Universities were being returned to a system that had been discarded ten years ago.